Reading instruction: Is this guidebook for you?

You are reading the XNTC Guidebook. What is this Guidebook about? And why should you continue reading it?

Tourism in the Nordics, like much of the global tourism industry, operates on thin margins. This fragility often discourages risk-taking, leading to cautious decision-making and slow, incremental improvements. But survival-mode thinking and hesitation are not going to cut it. If Nordic tourism wants to stay relevant, sustainable and competitive, we need to rethink not just how the industry operates, but why it operates that way in the first place.

The tourism industry is quite old-school. Many organisations barely use AI, even though there’s so much potential to optimise their operations. There’s resistance to change, partly because the average age in these organisations is high, and change management can be challenging.

… in conversation with Mathias Mølgaard, CEO & Co-founder, Storyhunt. Read the full interview here.

The Nordic region is known for sustainability and collaboration — it’s part of our identity. But these values are at risk of becoming empty buzzwords if not backed by new thinking and new collaborative ways of doing. The sustainable and competitive future of Nordic tourism depends on pushing beyond the familiar and testing new ideas — even when the road gets bumpy.

HOW TO INNOVATE IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM

This is where this Guidebook comes in. It captures the tips, tricks, and real lessons of the X-Nordic Travel Contest (XNTC), a two-year cross-Nordic tourism innovation journey. This isn’t a play-by-play manual or a promise of quick fixes. Instead, it’s a practical, honest look at how innovation happens: messy, exciting, and sometimes surprising.

Curious about the honest ups and downs of making meaningful change and collaboration? Then you’re in the right place.

This Guidebook dives into:

The challenge of identifying problems that really matter, also in 5 years.
Bridging the gap from headline problems to big ideas to real-world solutions.
Navigating the Nordic travel startup landscape.
Connecting forward-thinking startups with an industry that… let’s face it… is not exactly famous for embracing change.

This Guidebook is also about leaving a legacy of the X-Nordic Travel Contest. With this Guidebook, we hope that these learnings don’t just sit in a drawer, but can be part of fueling future efforts to make Nordic tourism futures better.

ARE YOU IN THE RIGHT PLACE?

Source: Group NAO